His career lasted from 1935 to 1981, where he was in over a hundred films, television programs, theatre productions and various shorts. He received one Academy Award nomination (The Grapes of Wrath) and eventually won one in 1981 for On Golden Pond. Between 1943 and 1946 his career was blank as he had been enlisted in the Navy during World War II. He was also friends with Jimmy Stewart (despite their opposing political viewsnote Stewart was a hawkish conservative, while Fonda was a vocal supporter of the Democratic Party. They actually once got into a fistfight after they had a political debate, and they made up by vowing never to talk politics again.), his former roommate.

In his lifetime, Fonda was typecast as straight-laced, heroic characters like Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath or Juror #8 in 12 Angry Men. His signature role was the beleaguered but sympathetic naval officer in Mister Roberts, which he played for years on stage and later on film. Fonda cemented this image playing Presidents, statesmen, generals and other authority figures in most of his later movies. Ironically, today's audiences probably recognize Fonda from his drastically against-type role in Once Upon a Time in the West as a psychotic gunslinger.

Fonda was married five times. His children from his third wife, Frances Ford Seymour, Jane and Peter, as well as granddaughter Bridget, are also accomplished actors in their own right. Though he often played nice guys in his films in real life he was reportedly very distant and withdrawn from people, even his own children, and by his own admission he was not an ideal parent. He died of heart failure on August 12, 1982 at age 77.

Production Posse: Close friend and frequent collaborator with John Ford. They had a serious falling out while shooting Mister Roberts, where Ford grew so angry at Fonda that the director struck him. They patched up their friendship but never worked together again.

Working-Class Hero: His 30s roles in films like The Grapes of Wrath and You Only Live Once made him this. Indeed author and Civil Rights protestor, James Baldwin noted that Henry Fonda was especially popular with African-American audiences who related to him better than they did other W.A.S.P. stars.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy